PM road show in Karnataka on March 12 as BJP amps up election pitch

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a road show and address a public meeting in Karnataka's Mandya district on March 12 as the ruling BJP seeks to break the JD-S clout in and around the sugarcane belt ahead of what is turning out to be a challenging assembly election for the ruling party.

This will be the PM's fifth visit to the state since January. The power duo of Modi and home minister Amit Shah has been making multiple visits as the BJP tries to retain power in the only southern state it holds. The upcoming visit will see the PM open the 118-km six-lane Bengaluru-Mysuru expressway, a ₹8,500 crore NHAI project that will benefit hundreds of thousands of people a day as it cuts travel time between Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

"The PM will hold a 2-km road show in Mandya and later a public meeting at Gejjalagere nearby," Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha told ET.


Mandya is currently represented in the Lok Sabha by former South Indian film star Sumalatha, who won the 2019 election with BJP's support. Whether she will campaign for the BJP in the assembly polls - which are due by May - is expected to become clear during the PM's visit.

The BJP plans to mobilise people from the neighbouring Mysuru, Hassan, Ramanagara and Chamarajanagar districts for the Sunday meeting. The five districts together account for 32 assembly seats and five Lok Sabha seats. Except for Mysuru city, all others have a strong presence of both JD-S and Congress. The BJP is working hard to broaden its presence as a win in most of these seats would mean an easy march towards the 113-seat mark it would need to form the government in the 224-seat assembly.

The principal Opposition in the state - the Congress - has always given a tough fight to the BJP. It, in fact, fared better than the party in the 2018 assembly election by polling 38% of votes, slightly ahead of the BJP's 36.22%. Five years earlier, the Congress had got 36.59% of votes, pushing the BJP to the third place.

The BJP, which is deeply concerned about possible electoral losses in some of its traditional pockets, is focusing on districts where it had been weak, to make up for losses elsewhere.